Is socialized medicine really better?

Like many of you perhaps, I saw and very much enjoyed Michael Moore’s latest documentary “Sicko” about the profoundly fucked-up American health care system, which was negatively contrasted with those of the UK, Canada, France and Cuba. I have many, diverse health problems, and access to health care will always be a major concern for me. I have been lucky to have excellent health care through most of my life – the best being when I was in grad school at Harvard. My Primary Care Physician (who was an RN) was the most knowledgeable, kind, thorough health-care provider, and my endocrinologist was Dean Emeritus of Harvard Med School! However, when my teaching position there dried up, I was totally without any health insurance (thankfully, those 6 months were about the only crises-free time of my life, so I lucked out). Even in my hometown, a medium-sized rust-belt city, I had very good health care and good insurance to support it.

When my husband quit his job in the US to prepare for our move to the UK, I was without insurance for about a month, and during that time I wanted to stock up on all my prescriptions in case it took awhile to get settled and find a GP in England. I paid for 3 months’ worth of meds out of pocket, and it cost 1500$!!! So you can imagine I was looking forward to the British health system, the NHS. I wasn’t here very long before the NHS was put to the test -– I was sent overnight to the hospital for observations, happily this all turned out fine. But the entire stay was free, they had ample and tasty vegetarian offerings for the meals, we were allowed to wear our own clothing, and treated less like inmates and more like clients than in US hospitals (in my experience, anyways). This was all confirmed when I was in the emergency room and hospital again after a very serious car-accident last month. And because I have one disease that is on a government list of exemptions, ALL my Rxs are free for my entire life here! Yay British National Health Services!

HOWEVER, when I got here, I found most of the meds I was on were also available here, but one very important one was not. I am on this medicine for a contraindication, that is to say, the primary use of this med was not important to me, but secondarily it does help control some of the symptoms I have from not one, but TWO different endocrine diseases. I was unhappy to hear that this med wasn’t available here as I am on this specific brand for its very specific balance of ingredients. I was put on one that was the closest approximation to my previous one as possible. However, the first problem with socialized medicine, or at least the NHS, cropped up at this point; you are not carefully walked through the procedure for taking each medicine here, and you are not given a print-out of all the warnings, complications, protocol by the pharmacist. Without any guidance, I took this medicine wrong (even though I had scoured the leaflet in the package and scoured the product’s website for answers – I am NOT a dumb girl). I did not adjust well to this medicine, on top of taking it wrong, and it had many nasty side effects which lasted months.

So I saw my GP to see if I could find some relief from these side effects, which were really bothersome. I offhandedly said “Too bad you guys don’t have Medicine X here, I never had problems on it,” and my GP (who is wonderful, by the way) mumbled under her breath that wasn’t true. Turns out this medicine always existed in the UK, but they discourage (meaning LIE to) patients from taking it because it is so much more expensive than the other brands, as regular practice. I don’t blame her personally, it’s the system, but I told her I was quite annoyed, the new medicine was difficult for me, and I wasn’t on this med for fun – I needed that exact dosage and mix, which is always used in the treatment of my syndrome! So the good news is, I am back on the original brand and already adjusting better to it. But the bad news is, I was lied to and put on a medicine that had all sorts of deleterious effects.

Now, does this mean the entire system of socialized medicine is broken? No – I would always rather live in a country with universal health care. About 1/6 of the US population (around 45 million people) have no health insurance at all, this is SICKENING, a scandal, a crime and a shame. However, turns out the UK system is a little broken too…